Expats, tell me what aspect or social norm of your new country was strange to you?

[AjasLipstick]

I am a Brit in Oz and for me, the hardest thing to get used to was Sunday trading hours being like the UK in the 70s.

The weirdest thing was how much less formal people are...kids are dressed very informally and parties for children never have kids dressed up in party dresses but in shorts and t shirts. I like it now I'm used to it though.

I have lived in Germany for 16 years and I find the selfish attitude and behaviour here still very hard to accept. Queuing is one thing that the British are very good at but other nations don't seem to want to wait their turn.
You have to quickly learn to stand your ground here otherwise you will get trampled on.

thegreatbeyond are you me? My DH also S. American. I know when we visit friends or go to parties we spend an hour saying hello and doing the kiss thing and an hour saying bye and kissing! I am so used it now though I find it weird not doing it so I do it with everyone no matter where they are from! My mother also loves my DH as they have loads in common. I love my DH family, we get on really well but they are in SAmerica so only see them every few years but talk all the time. We hope to move out there in a decade or so.

Mere - Electronic pumps (which almost are in the UK now, don't know about other countries) log "turns" on the pumps so the next user can only start once the cashier has accepted the new user. The outstanding amount is still waiting on their system.

It's like in a supermarket, if you got to checkout and realised you'd left your purse in the car, they store the sale whilst going on to the next customer, then when you come back with money they bring up your sale to complete it.

From SA, when was in UK:

Exs family kept calling me Petal. I really thought that were mispronouncing my name at first, until I heard them call someone else that as well. Then when they called me Pet, I twigged on that its a term of endearment (well I think so....)

I still do not get the half half wedding thing. For us, if you are invited to a wedding, you go to the wedding... to all of it. When we got an invite to go to a wedding in UK, but only to the party, I was flabbergasted. So I was to attend the party, but not to see them take their vows?? Very odd to me, still to this day.

What is the thing with having to take off your shoes to go into someone's house? At first I thought it was to not dirty the carpet, but this also applies to houses that don't even have carpets, ie laminate floors etc.

I was very very shocked to have posted a letter, and to my surprise, the person had it the very next morning. Utter shock, as our post to my neighbour would take at least 2 weeks.

Went to a party. Offered a Scottish child a drink. The child didn't get my accent, so mother said to child "Murphys asked if you would like some ginger". I pipe up, no sorry I don't have ginger, only orange flavour....... cue plenty hysterical laughs.

Same family, asked for a chap in the morning (stayed over at the party). I was as to which chap exactly she would have liked me to arrange.... to find out it is a wake up call..... .

And if a real Irish person spoke to me, I just stood there, as I needed a translator. Not a clue. I could not decipher what they were saying, as the accent is so strong, but its the speed at which they speak. Love the accent, just wish I could understand it better he he.

Some things mentioned upthread re SA I had a giggle about. We do have some weird and wonderful expressions which I do expect take a little getting used to.

mere like what Sunday said. It’s all logged. Perhaps it’s the Brits like queuing thing 😂

Yea

Ginger - fizzy pop
Chap - a knock at the door, notification.

Regarding cards - Aussies do give cards but usually it’s because that’s what you give with a gift. I think it’s quite lovely that in the UK people like to send cards for any reason. However, it doesn’t come naturally to me.

Fish and chips shops - I heard how the best fish n chips are in the Uk. I have been so disappointed! There is nothing wrong with the cod but I find the chips hit n miss. There is only one place I like the chips from a chippy over here. Even DH prefers the chips in OZ. However, triple cooked chips at a pub are very nice. The malt vinegar is so weak tasting. You can taste the vinegar on Aussie chips. It’s the same with salt and vingear crisps. The only ones I like are the Mcoys as they taste like the Aussie ones.

Pocketangel, there was a great photo in the national press, here in the UK, about a year ago when a Saudi prince had booked seats on a plane for his 80 falcons!

glitzy yes, the chips! I have the same sentiment- they’re soggy and blah!! I remember when harry ramsdens opened in Melbourne over 20 years ago - same style of chips and no, they didn’t last for long! And they really need to put potato cakes on the menu (or potato scallops depending where you come from 😉)

I have a question RE Germany:
If they drive really fast and agressively, how does that square up with all the small children wandering around on their own? Don't people worry about them getting squished?
Someone ( sorry don't know who) said this about France;
Saying “bonjour” to everyone, all the time. When you get in the lift at work, when someone else gets in the lift, when you go into a shop (and “au revoir” when you leave”), when you pay for something, when you pass your neighbours on the stairs. All the time.
I would do that if I go in a small shop, or pass a neighbour, or get in a lift.. (hello not bonjour-I'm British).
I have realised why, when in Paris, I found everyone lovely and friendly and they are renowned for being rude, maybe it's because I bonjoured the Hell out of everyone
I have lived in HK and the US, and agree that in some ways coming back to the UK was the weirdest. How cosy the TV feels, how crowded everywhere is, how everyone talks about the same stuff/uses the same buzz words, how terrified people seem of human interaction but seem to like dogs more than people.
I love my country but I don't always feel that I fit in.

Maggie, omg what I’d give for a potato scallop ;) with chicken salt and Aussie bbq sauce - I have to make do with sweet n sticky Heinz bbq sauce as an welcome alternative ,to all that aweful smokey bbq sauce.

The speed limit in the large village where my family lives is 20 kmh ifnot and the vast majority of drivers sticks to it but yes, on Autobahnen the speed can be crazy. Not only the speed but also how close cars drive up to the ones in front and how close to someone else cars are pulling out to overtake.

culture shock has always being when returning

This makes perfect sense to me. We up sticks and go off on an adventure, expecting things to be different. When we are 'coming back' to what is supposed to be 'home', we expect everything to be as we remembered it and struggle when it is, or seems, different to what we expect.

@Hakarl Mmmm, salty liquorice. And when i do get some, i just cannot stop myself over-eating it, too

I really rather like the idea of living in Iceland.

Anyone realised how indecisive Brits actually are, once you move abroad?

What is it with Saudis and falcons?

Canada, but this is a thug across all of North America:

Doggybags. Seriously, no I do not want the cold plate-scrapings putting in a box for me. No matter how hungry I am tomorrow, I won’t find a couple of soggy nachos and a half-eaten burger appealing. Just why?

Make the portions smaller if they are too big for one person to eat. I don’t want to take the contents of the slops bucket home with me after a lovely meal out. It really turns my stomach to even be asked. And then the waitress gives you a weird look when you say no!

(Normal leftovers, ie “extra portion that is still in the pan” is fine. It’s offering people the half-eaten plate-scrapings that is rancid.

Sashkin,

I totally agree. The portions of food in America are obscene really. Puts me right off my dinner! But people expect that there I suppose.

But the Doggy Bag is for the dog surely, not humans. I would never reheat the slops that are given in bags for consumption by me or any other human. But I am a fussy onion...

Being pedantic - doggy bags aren't bags, they're boxes.

I love eating leftovers from a restaurant! Also agree with a PP about portions though, I was surprised to find portions in the UK just as large at many restaurants/pubs.

halfwitpicker, falconry, and the use of falcons as hunting birds, in those countries has been going on for centuries theculturetrip.com/middle-east/united-arab-emirates/articles/why-falcons-are-important-to-emirati-culture/

Taking leftovers home is ok if it's pizza though because pizza breakfast mmm

Thanks, panpanpan

Brit in China.

Where to begin, there's the spitting, squat toilets and needing to wear a mask to go outside for most of the winter.

Also, as a woman with size 7 feet I can't buy shoes here, not even online. But there's plus sides, shoes aside, you can buy literally anything on Taobao and it normally arrives the next day. Compounds have these amazing box systems for deliveries so you don't need to be in when things are delivered.

The importance of having a smartphone really surprised me, everyone is on WeChat (a Chinese social app)and even if you just exchange a few pleasantries with someone in a cafe etc, they'll ask to add you on WeChat. You can do everything through the WeChat and Alipay apps, I rarely even take a purse out with me anymore and can't remember the last time I paid for anything with a card.

Public transport is amazing, clean and cheap, my kids are treated like celebrities everywhere we go and there's a bakery or coffee shop on every street corner (which might account for me gaining a stone in the past year!). Nigh-on impossible to find good bread though. Or Branston Pickle.

Questa... there are good things too, I promise!
A small sample:
German society is founded - for obvious historical reasons - on a very humane spirit. For example, the criminal justice system is a lot less vengeful than the UK one and very much focused on justice alongside reform and rehabilitation. (Not that I have had dealings with the criminal justice system but it's something you notice). And, while there is nasty racism, a lot of people were incredibly welcoming towards the refugees who came in 2015.
Then there's the sensible attitude towards giving children some personal freedom. The pendulum has swung away from the extreme of 6yos going halfway across the city on the bus/tube by themselves - a lot of German parents will walk their children to school for the first year or perhaps two, but by 8 most kids are going by themselves. I think the system treats older and secondary children with more of a trust in their maturity, as well (the lack of ridiculous uniform rules about exactly that shade of grey trousers and hair no longer than 2.576 inches helps). I do reckon this pays off later - German students go less wild than British ones at university - they live pretty much the same life, with part-time jobs and studying, as they did in the final years of school, except they are perhaps living away from home. They seem more domestically competent, too - getting together to cook a meal is an entirely normal student thing to do.

The thing in Iceland about swearing in English not counting is true for here too. Cf. Angela Merkel talking about 'shitstorms' and any number of Germans chucking 'shit' around in front of me (while I look like this -> ). But tbf, Scheisse is considered very mild in Germany, and people just literally translate.